Competition Time

Following on from the post below. Answers please to this question:

What bands do you think these people wanted backstage passes for? (And you can't have The Arctic Monkeys).

Wittiest response gets one of my kidneys.*





*if I have one in the fridge.

Plus, the Winner Gets to Kill Her!

A Dutch reality television show in which a terminally ill woman is to select one of three contestants to receive her kidneys when she dies is to air this week despite criticism that it pushes the boundaries of the format too far.

Let's hope it isn't decided by a drink-off.

And Don't Get Me Started on That Liberal Queer-Loving Hitler

Fred Phelps and Co. picket Jerry Falwell's funeral.

The members of Westboro Baptist Church carried placards accusing Falwell of being in league with gays and of cozying up to Israel.

The church, which operates the GodHatesFags Web site, had warned Lynchburg police in advance they were coming.

On its site Westboro, run by Rev. Fred Phelps, called Falwell, a "corpulent false prophet" and said he "spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like 'God loves everyone.'"

In attacking Falwell the church says he "warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White (of Souflorce), and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, etc."

You couldn't make this shit up.

Double Trouble

Has anyone noticed the resemblance...

Here's my Primavera, tell me yours.

THURSDAY
Elvis Perkins
Veracruz
Slint
Smashing Pumpkins
The White Stripes

FRIDAY

Mus
Ginferno
Brightblack Morning Light
Billy Bragg
Black Mountain
Blonde Redhead (or Barry Adamson)
The Fall
Beirut (or Band of Horses)
Sr.Chinarro (or refreshments)
Modest Mouse
Girls Against Boys
Low
Bonde Do Role
Kid Koala
Hot Chip (if still awake)

SATURDAY

Kimya Dawson
Oakley Hall
Apples in Stereo (or Ted Leo & the Pharmacists)
Jonathan Richman
The Long Blondes
Durutti Column
Robyn Hitchcock (or Architecture in Helsnki)
Patti Smith
The Good the Bad and the Queen
Battles
Buzzcocks
Wilco

Some compromises will be made as food may need to taken at some point during the weekend and time could be lost queueing for the auditorium.

Full time table here

Football Name Game

Can you name Premiership footballers who share a name with fictional detectives?

God Says: Keep That Fascist Nutcase Away From Me!!

Does not having a heart count as a heart defect?

Lest we forget:

"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

"The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country."

"The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior."

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"

and on 9/11:

"I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the terrorist, [but America's] secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord's [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture . . . the result is not good."

Overheard in My Head

This workplace conversation took place not minutes ago, following the reading of an article about this organization:

Ron: Bri, if you were schizophrenic and had the choice, whose voice would you like to hear in your head all day?

Bri: Les Dawson.

Me: David Coleman.

Ron: I'd have Tony Cascarino. He's a laugh a minute.

Me: And he'd be useful to have for the gambling advice.

Ron: Good point. Didn't he win some big poker competition recently?

Me: Yup. (Pause) Imagine playing Tony Cascarino at poker while hearing his voice in your head.

Bri: "I've got a pair of twos."

Me: I don't mean like that, Bri. When you hear someone else's voice in your head, they're not actually sat somewhere else talking to you.

Bri: And besides, he could be bluffing.

Zen Masturbation and Time Travel

Not a Python reference (and I'm not sure whether there should be commas) but the currrent interests, according to the Comments here, of the brilliant and wonderful Carlton B. Morgan.

Perhaps Gwent is more interesting than I imagined.

Poker Joker

Tony Cascarino interviewed in today's Guardian. Read it right to the end for a top joke. Skip the middle bit unless you want to read this:

When I was with Ireland I was in a room with Andy Townsend and this girl's started shouting up to our window: 'Andy, Andy, Tony, Tony - where's Jason Mcateer?' So Andy says 'he's in the next room' and they say 'run back and throw us his shirt'? I opened his door and there was no football shirt but there was a pair of shorts and a jockstrap, so I picked up the jockstrap, which had a huge skid mark on it, and threw it out the window. And this girl was thrilled. We were all in bits. Some fans will have anything.

A Fence Too Far

Even Sports Illustrated (SI) carried an obituary for Kurt Vonnegut, who died last month. The April 23 issue reported:

DIED At age 84, novelist Kurt Vonnegut. In 1954, Vonnegut—a talented young writer who confessed to knowing next to nothing about sports—was hired to write for SI, which had yet to begin publishing. One of his first assignments was to write a caption about a racehorse who had jumped the rail at Aqueduct and galloped across the infield. Vonnegut pondered the task, typed one sentence and then walked out of his office, never to return. His caption: The horse jumped over the f—ing fence. SI's loss was literature's gain. Cat's Cradle came out in 1963, and in '69 he published his most famous work, the semiautobiographical Slaughterhouse-Five.

Doubts About Chomsky

Timothy Mason identifes a few.

It was 24 years 9 months ago

Whenever the question "what was your first gig?" comes up I've always taken a guilty pleasure in saying "Elton John, Brondby,1984!"

However , during a clearout yesterday, I found these two tickets which show that my memory is shit but my taste is excellent.

Rafa Benitez Isn't the Least Bit Sticky

Former Real Madrid coach Jorge Valdano lays into the lack of flair exhibited in the Chelsea/Liverpool Champions League semis.

It was 25 years ago this week

The great Spizzenergi sums it up.

Not a Great Man

That Time magazine article about Bertie Ahern by Catherine Mayer, she of Gang of Four connections.

Now That's What I Call a Slow News Day

More top-notch reporting from Fox.

Natural Is In It

New Mekons album coming your way in August.

May Day Greetings

So different from the dungeon's gloom, the forest's shady bower
There's many a shade that love might share, where a man can kiss another
Her warm breath turning moist, where she is already
Green leaves and sunshine, sextatic in her head

(instrumental)

Like beautiful maggots inside rotten apples
Spitting out the juices of kings and big-arsed Barons
Fat on the Crusades, slaughtered by Assassins
Afraid to walk the glades of the land they own

Rise like lions, shake your chains, babe
Ye are many, they are few
Take from the rich and give to the poor
Take from the rich and give to the poor

Images of Spitfires strafing Greek resistance fighters
Winston Churchill gunning down the South Wales striking miners
In green we fought the Black 'n' Tans and beat them back to Ulster
An 18-year-old Argentine, lungs filled with cold water

(intro instrumental)

Buried Republican visions, symbolic and explicit
A history of resistance, denied by bishops, lawyers, spies
And Grantham hugely petty, riding on her crocodile
'cross teeming London Bridge, paved with blood and gold

Rise like lions, shake your chains, babe
Ye are many, they are few
Take from the rich and give to the poor
Take from the rich and give to the poor

Out in hunting country, we sabotage their leisure
Many a grotto meant for rest holds a pirate for a guest
Soft the scene so formed for joy
Oh curse the tyrants that destroy

Rise like lions, shake your chains, babe
Ye are many, they are few
Take from the rich and give to the poor
Take from the rich and give to the poor

"Robin Hood"
Mekons